


Or Even Richer

by Major



Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Episode Tag, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 12:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16408454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Major/pseuds/Major
Summary: Sam hates it when Steven is mad at him. It doesn't affect his appetite (not even a stomach flu could take down that unstoppable force), but sleep is another story.





	Or Even Richer

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place immediately after 2x02 'Ship of Vipers' after their fight. I just binged season one last week, and I'm in love with this crazy show and these two in particular.

This cold shoulder stuff was worse than Alexis’ intentional nip slip at breakfast that morning.  Sam hung back near the doorway as Steven got ready for bed.  Fighting was the worst.  He wanted to sneak back off to the kitchen and stress eat.

“Do you want me to sleep in one of the guest rooms?”  There was too much tension to breathe through Steven’s closed off expression and avoided gaze.

It almost would have been a relief to get kicked out.  At least while he was stuffing the last of the tiramisu into the bottomless pit in his stomach labeled ‘Comfort Food Disposal’, he could pretend that he hadn’t made a total ass of himself after letting Alexis into his head for an insane hot minute.

“Yes,” Steven snapped.  Despite his desire to escape the tension, a pitiful flurry of sadness whipped into him at the clipped dismissal.  Steven raised a hand as Sam turned to go.  “Wait.  No.”

Hope sprang up, but Steven was still frowning.

“But only because I can’t sleep without you anymore,” he said, which would have been sweet if he hadn’t sounded so bitter about it.  “Why should I have to suffer because of what you and Mom did?”

There was still a second of internal debate (the call of the fridge was strong), but Sam closed the door and walked over to the dresser to get changed for bed.  The Carrington house was a lot of things.  ‘Asylum’ was a better word for it, both because Sam had been saved there and because the people that had saved him turned out to be the craziest people he’d ever met—untreated, undiagnosed, and determined to blow molehills into mountains and mountains into burning barns.  It had always been restful at the end of the day when all of that craziness was put to bed.

Sam slept hard after Alexis tried to have him arrested.  He dreamed sweet dreams after Steven’s racist grandbastard tried to get him deported, because the house was a haven and his heart and mind clung to the safety it provided even when it was under threat of being taken from him.  He even slept long and deep in the first tidal wave of his grief for Cristal, safe in Steven’s arms, strong and comforting around him.

That night, though, he watched midnight flip over into single digits on the clock on the nightstand and only felt the hands of sleep slipping further from his reach with each anxious second that passed.  Somewhere between counting two hundred sheep (damn flock was unmanageably large) and turning onto his side, Steven spoke up.

“If anyone has a right to lose sleep tonight, it’s me.”  He sounded awake enough that he wasn’t sure if he’d woken him up by tossing or if he’d never fallen to sleep to begin with.

“I know.”

Steven insisted, “I have a right to be mad.  I don’t want to comfort you.”

The sad weight in his chest grew heavier.  “You shouldn’t.”

Long seconds passed.  The flock grew thirty fluffy siblings.  Steven was unnaturally still on the other side of the bed, an ocean of space and discomfort between them.

Finally, Steven asked, because Steven was Steven and had to ask, “What’s wrong?”

A wisp of a smile lifted Sam’s lips before disappearing behind the pressure of his regret.

“We’re fighting.”

He thought the sheep were going to extend their family tenfold, but there was a huff and a rustle of blankets as Steven pushed himself into a sitting position up against the headboard and looked down at him in the dim light streaming in through the window’s parted curtains.

“Sam, I’ve seen you sleep through one of Fallon’s tirades.  You didn’t even flinch on the couch while she shattered an entire set of crystal glasses.  That’s like yawning on a plane during a nosedive.  The only thing you do better than sleep is eat.  Talk.”  Freezing people out wasn’t his strong suit, and Sam loved him for it even if he rushed to add, “But I’m not comforting you.”

That was fair.

They’d had disputes before.  God knew that finding out that he knocked up a senator’s wife (and knew about it!) before they got hitched hadn’t exactly been an easy discovery, but it was different now.  The way he viewed his tether to Steven was different.  He was different.

“I think it scared me,” he admitted.  “Seeing you so upset with me.”

“Scared?  Sam, I’m hardly Fallon.  There are internet rumors that she breathes fire.”

“A rumor or long-buried family secret?” Sam asked, because the Carringtons being dragons in disguise would not shock him at all.  “It’s just different.  And don’t get me wrong, I deserve it.  I know that.  But…”

“But?” he prompted.

It cost him to confess the rest.  It felt like emotional blackmail, but it was the truth as plainly as it haunted him.

“I don’t have anybody.  You’re it.  My dad is dead.  My mom sort of double died.  The woman I thought she was doesn’t actually exist, and the real version is a fugitive on the run that I’ll probably never see again for the rest of my life.  Cristal was the one I could always count on, always turn to.  She was the only one that was there for me every day since I was a kid.  She loved me, you know?  And she’s gone too now.  I’m like this reverse magnet.  Instead of pulling people in, I repulse them all until they disappear.  If I lose you… that’s it.  I’m alone.”

He risked a glance at Steven.  Even through his obvious aggravation, that irrepressible kind heart that drew him to him to begin with, shone through.

“Sam…”

“Hey.”  Sam waved him off.  He messed up, he got it.  It wasn’t Steven’s place to carry his burdens when he was the one that was wronged.  “I should just go to one of the guest rooms.  Or sleep on the couch.  Like you said, I can sleep through Fallon’s tornado rages.”  Usually, anyway.  “I can sleep through the staff cleaning around me in the morning.  My guilt is keeping you up, and you don’t deserve that.  I was weird.  And joined a criminal ring with your mom.  And lied to you.”

In retrospect, the whole breaking into someone’s house thing should have fired off enough warning flags to give him more than a moment’s hesitation before hopping the tracks onto Alexis’ crazy train.

He turned his head on the pillow, regretful not only for his poor judgment but also for getting carried away so easily down a road that hurt Steven and the fragile relationship they were building with the woman they were going to raise a child with.  “I’m sorry.”

Steven sighed, but the clipped irritation was gone.  Resigned, reluctant fondness replaced it.

“Well, I lied too.”  At Sam’s look, he rolled his eyes and clarified, “I’m going to comfort you now.  Come here.”

Sam would have been lying if he pretended like the invitation didn’t lift a ten pound weight from his heart.  He scooted over under the covers until he could rest his head on his lap.

“Are you sure?” he asked even though Steven’s fingers were already gently carding through his hair.  “I know I’m more repulsive to you right now than the image of your parents’ _reunion_ last night.”

“Okay, first off, nothing is more repulsive than that.  And secondly, you could never be repulsive to me.  I’m mad.  Yeah.  But that’s it, Sam.  That’s as far as it goes.  I’m mad, and I’ll get over it and I’ll still be here.  I will always be here.  Your memory can’t be _that_ terrible.  Or maybe it was my vows that need work if you’ve already forgotten them.  Should have stuck to the classics.  Through sickness and in health, for richer or—”

“Even richer,” Sam joked.

Hard as he tried, he couldn’t imagine the Carringtons poor.  Forget sticking to their spouses; a poor Carrington would have to be institutionalized, because God knew they couldn’t wash their clothes without a full staff to handle the perils of pouring detergent into the machine.

Steven’s fingers kept up their gentle maze through his hair, and the tension of the night slowly poured out of him.  “The point is, if Carringtons parted ways every time one of us lied or broke a law, we’d all have disowned each other in infancy.”  Sad but true.  For all their insanity, living there sure instilled a strong capacity for forgiveness because there was always something to forgive.  “You’re stuck with me forever.  And you will never be alone.”

He closed his eyes and let the world narrow down to him and Steven.  It was a pretty nice little pocket to be in.

“I really am sorry,” he murmured.

Steven’s hand stilled in his hair and moved to his shoulder, giving him a squeeze.  “I know.  Mom has a way of taking someone’s sanity and putting it in a blender.”  That explained the batshit smoothie that was Fallon.  “I forgive you.”

“I won’t do anything like that again.”  In fact, it was probably best to avoid Alexis altogether.  Fallon might have made a good smoothie, in her own Regina George meets Carrie fashion, but he was going to avoid the blender from now on.

“No, you won’t.”  Steven slid down, forcing him to shift until they were lying side by side, and he traced his fingers down the side of his face.  “We’re in this together.  And we’re not plotting.  Or assuming the worst in people.  Or ripping open the dress of our baby momma.”

Sam’s laughter was hollow, but his smile was uncontainable as he closed his eyes against the series of unfortunate choices that led to that particular horror show.  Steven pulled him into his arms and held him close, cocooned against his chest.

“Sleep,” Steven said quietly but purposefully in that tone that got caught between a suggestion and demand.

Sam sunk into his protective embrace and didn’t need to be told twice.  The night, cold and fraught, gave way to steady warmth.  He drifted off into deep, easy dreams and didn’t need a single sheep.


End file.
